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Friday, 27 April 2012

Scientists see solution to critical barrier to fusion

Is the elusive fusion closer to reality??? it appears so as scientists see solution to critical barrier to it, remarkable!!! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120423143128.htm
"Physicists have discovered a possible solution to a mystery that has
long baffled researchers working to harness fusion. If confirmed by
experiment, the finding could help scientists eliminate a major
impediment to the development of fusion as a clean and abundant source
of energy for producing electric power. An in-depth analysis by
scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics
Laboratory (PPPL) zeroed in on tiny, bubble-like islands that appear in
the hot, charged gases -- or plasmas -- during experiments. These
minute islands collect impurities that cool the plasma. And it is these
islands, the scientists report in the April 20 issue of Physical Review
Letters, that are at the root of a long-standing problem known as the
"density limit" that can prevent fusion reactors from operating at
maximum efficiency. Fusion occurs when plasmas become hot and dense
enough for the atomic nuclei contained within the hot gas to combine and
release energy. But when the plasmas in experimental reactors called
tokamaks reach the mysterious density limit, they can spiral apart into a
flash of light. "The big mystery is why adding more heating power to
the plasma doesn't get you to higher density," said David A. Gates, a
principal research physicist at PPPL and co-author of the proposed
solution with Luis Delgado-Aparicio, a post-doctoral fellow at PPPL and a
visiting scientist at MIT's Plasma Science Fusion Center. "This is
critical because density is the key parameter in reaching fusion and
people have been puzzling about this for 30 or 40 years.""

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Welcome to the Future of Neutron Scattering in Canada
a grassroots, nonpartisan movement of ordinary Canadians
that emerged in response to the lack of commitment by federal government(s) to build a new research reactor in Canada for nearly 2 decades.